i think it'd be awesome and beneficial to have a discord server! this is a chat program where people can conversate about the game & just chat in general- so think similar to a shoutbox on the forums or skype with additional features. you can download the app or use the desktop version on their website (discordapp.com), along with a mobile app for phones/tablets, so it will be available to everyone easily! it's not something you have to manually add people to join- any staff member, or really anyone in the chat, grabs a link from the chat and can add it anywhere onto a website, link it on the forums, etc. so it'll be easily accessible! i think this will also be more welcoming to new players and such as they can hop right in and chat with the community. there can be announcements on this for when an event is about to start, general information can be posted, new releases can be announced when put into the game, basically anything the community needs to know, using the @everyone/@here tag. people will be able to make trades easier with one another, recruit for pirates/hm, and just be able to see who's online at the time.
overall i think this would improve quality of life here on myvmk. as the shoutbox was a huge hit when we had it; i believe this would also be a great addition!!
(it's also very simple for discord to be moderated, as this may be a concern of staff.)